The Dove in the Eagle's Nest

CHAPTER XXIII: THE ALTAR OF PEACE

No one could bear to waken the young Baron till the sun had risen high enough to fall on his face and unclose his eyes.

"Mother" (ever his first word), "you have let me sleep too long."

"Thou didst wake too long, I fear me."

"I hoped you knew it not. Yes, my wound throbbed sore, and the wonders of the day whirled round my brain like the wild huntsman's chase."

"And, cruel boy, thou didst not call to me."

"What, with such a yesterday, and such a morrow for you? while, chance what may, I can but lie still. I thought I must call, if I were still so wretched, when the last moonbeam faded; but, behold, sleep came, and therewith my Friedel sat by me, and has sung songs of peace ever since."

"And hath lulled thee to content, dear son?"

"Content as the echo of his voice and the fulfilment of his hope can make me," said Ebbo.

And so Christina made her son ready for the day's solemnities, arraying him in a fine holland shirt with exquisite broidery of her own on the collar and sleeves, and carefully disposing his long glossy, dark brown hair so as to fall on his shoulders as he lay propped up by cushions. She would have thrown his crimson mantle round him, but he repelled it indignantly. "Gay braveries for me, while my Friedel is not yet in his resting-place? Here--the black velvet cloak."

"Alas, Ebbo! it makes thee look more of a corpse than a bridegroom. Thou wilt scare thy poor little spouse. Ah! it was not thus I had fancied myself decking thee for thy wedding."

"Poor little one!" said Ebbo. "If, as your uncle says, mourning is the seed of joy, this bridal should prove a gladsome one! But let her prove a loving child to you, and honour my Friedel's memory, then shall I love her well. Do not fear, motherling; with the roots of hatred and jealousy taken out of the heart, even sorrow is such peace that it is almost joy."

It was over early for pain and sorrow to have taught that lesson, thought the mother, as with tender tears she gave place to the priest, who was to begin the solemnities of the day by shriving the young Baron. It was Father Norbert, who had in this very chamber baptized the brothers, while their grandmother was plotting the destruction of their godfather, even while he gave Friedmund his name of peace,--Father Norbert, who had from the very first encouraged the drooping, heart-stricken, solitary Christina not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good.

A temporary altar was erected between the windows, and hung with the silk and embroidery belonging to that in the chapel: a crucifix was placed on it, with the shrine of the stone of Nicaea, one or two other relics brought on St. Ruprecht's cloister, and a beautiful mother-of-pearl and gold pyx also from the abbey, containing the host. These were arranged by the chaplain, Father Norbert, and three of his brethren from the abbey. And then the Father Abbot, a kindly, dignified old man, who had long been on friendly terms with the young Baron, entered; and after a few kind though serious words to him, assumed a gorgeous cope stiff with gold embroidery, and, standing by the altar, awaited the arrival of the other assistants at the ceremony.

The slender, youthful-looking, pensive lady of the castle, in her wonted mourning dress, was courteously handed to her son's bedside by the Emperor. He was in his plain buff leathern hunting garb, unornamented, save by the rich clasp of his sword-belt and his gold chain, and his head was only covered by the long silken locks of fair hair that hung round his shoulders; but, now that his large keen dark blue eyes were gravely restrained, and his eager face composed, his countenance was so majestic, his bearing so lofty, that not all his crowns could have better marked his dignity.

Behind him came a sunburnt, hardy man, wearing the white mantle and black fleur-de-lis-pointed cross of the Teutonic Order. A thrill passed through Ebbo's veins as he beheld the man who to him represented the murderer of his brother and both his grandfathers, the cruel oppressor of his father, and the perpetrator of many a more remote, but equally unforgotten, injury. And in like manner Sir Dankwart beheld the actual slayer of his father, and the heir of a long score of deadly retribution. No wonder then that, while the Emperor spoke a few words of salutation and inquiry, gracious though not familiar, the two foes scanned one another with a shiver of mutual repulsing, and a sense that they would fain have fought it out as in the good old times.

However, Ebbo only beheld a somewhat dull, heavy, honest-looking visage of about thirty years old, good-nature written in all its flat German features, and a sort of puzzled wonder in the wide light eyes that stared fixedly at him, no doubt in amazement that the mighty huge-limbed Wolfgang could have been actually slain by the delicately-framed youth, now more colourless than ever in consequence of the morning's fast. Schleiermacher was also present, and the chief followers on either hand had come into the lower part of the room--Hatto, Heinz, and Koppel, looking far from contented; some of the Emperor's suite; and a few attendants of Schlangenwald, like himself connected with the Teutonic Order.

The Emperor spoke: "We have brought you together, Herr Graff von Schlangenwald, and Herr Freiherr von Adlerstein, because ye have given us reason to believe you willing to lay aside the remembrance of the foul and deadly strifes of your forefathers, and to live as good Christians in friendship and brotherhood."

"Sire, it is true," said Schlangenwald; and "It is true," said Ebbo.

"That is well," replied Maximilian. "Nor can our reign better begin than by the closing of a breach that has cost the land some of its bravest sons. Dankwart von Schlangenwald, art thou willing to pardon the heir of Adlerstein for having slain thy father in free and honourable combat, as well as, doubtless, for other deeds of his ancestors, more than I know or can specify?"

"Yea, truly; I pardon him, my liege, as befits my vow."

"And thou, Eberhard von Adlerstein, dost thou put from thee vengeance for thy twin brother's death, and all the other wrongs that thine house has suffered?"

"I put revenge from me for ever."

"Ye agree, further, then, instead of striving as to your rights to the piece of meadow called the Debateable Strand, and to the wrecks of burthens there cast up by the stream, ye will unite with the citizens of Ulm in building a bridge over the Braunwasser, where, your mutual portions thereof being decided by the Swabian League, toll may be taken from all vehicles and beasts passing there over?"

"We agree," said both knights.

"And I, also, on behalf of the two guilds of Ulm," added Moritz Schleiermacher.

"Likewise," continued the Emperor, "for avoidance of debate, and to consecrate the spot that has caused so much contention, ye will jointly erect a church, where may be buried both the relatives who fell in the late unhappy skirmish, and where ye will endow a perpetual mass for their souls, and those of others of your two races."

"Thereto I willingly agree," said the Teutonic knight. But to Ebbo it was a shock that the pure, gentle Friedmund should thus be classed with his treacherous assassin; and he had almost declared that it would be sacrilege, when he received from the Emperor a look of stern, surprised command, which reminded him that concession must not be all on one side, and that he could not do Friedel a greater wrong than to make him a cause of strife. So, though they half choked him, he contrived to utter the words, "I consent."

"And in token of amity I here tear up and burn all the feuds of Adlerstein," said Schlangenwald, producing from his pouch a collection of hostile literature, beginning from a crumpled strip of yellow parchment and ending with a coarse paper missive in the clerkly hand of burgher-bred Hugh Sorel, and bearing the crooked signatures of the last two Eberhards of Adlerstein--all with great seals of the eagle shield appended to them. A similar collection-- which, with one or two other family defiances, and the letters of investiture recently obtained at Ulm, formed the whole archives of Adlerstein--had been prepared within Ebbo's reach; and each of the two, taking up a dagger, made extensive gashes in these documents, and then--with no mercy to the future antiquaries, who would have gloated over them--the whole were hurled into the flames on the hearth, where the odour they emitted, if not grateful to the physical sense, should have been highly agreeable to the moral.

"Then, holy Father Abbot," said Maximilian, "let us ratify this happy and Christian reconciliation by the blessed sacrifice of peace, over which these two faithful knights shall unite in swearing good-will and brotherhood."

Such solemn reconciliations were frequent, but, alas were too often a mockery. Here, however, both parties were men who felt the awe of the promise made before the Pardon-winner of all mankind. Ebbo, bred up by his mother in the true life of the Church, and comparatively apart from practical superstitions, felt the import to the depths of his inmost soul, with a force heightened by his bodily state of nervous impressibility; and his wan, wasted features and dark shining eyes had a strange spiritual beam, "half passion and half awe," as he followed the words of universal forgiveness and lofty praise that he had heard last in his anguished trance, when his brother lay dying beside him, and leaving him behind. He knew now that it was for this.

His deep repressed ardour and excitement were no small contrast to the sober, matter-of-fact demeanour of the Teutonic knight, who comported himself with the mechanical decorum of an ecclesiastic, but quite as one who meant to keep his word. Maximilian served the mass in his royal character as sub-deacon. He was fond of so doing, either from humility, or love of incongruity, or both. No one, however, communicated except the clergy and the parties concerned-- Dankwart first, as being monk as well as knight, then Eberhard and his mother; and then followed, interposed into the rite, the oath of pardon, friendship, and brotherhood administered by the abbot, and followed by the solemn kiss of peace. There was now no recoil; Eberhard raised himself to meet the lips of his foe, and his heart went with the embrace. Nay, his inward ear dwelt on Friedmund's song mingling with the concluding chants of praise.

The service ended, it was part of the pledge of amity that the reconciled enemies should break their fast together, and a collation of white bread and wine was provided for the purpose. The Emperor tried to promote free and friendly talk between the two adversaries, but not with great success; for Dankwart, though honest and sincere, seemed extremely dull. He appeared to have few ideas beyond his Prussian commandery and its routine discipline, and to be lost in a castle where all was at his sole will and disposal, and he caught eagerly at all proposals made to him as if they were new lights. As, for instance, that some impartial arbitrator should be demanded from the Swabian League to define the boundary; and that next Rogation- tide the two knights should ride or climb it in company, while meantime the serfs should be strictly charged not to trespass, and any transgressor should be immediately escorted to his own lord.

"But," quoth Sir Dankwart, in a most serious tone, "I am told that a she-bear wons in a den on yonder crag, between the pass you call the Gemsbock's and the Schlangenwald valley. They told me the right in it had never been decided, and I have not been up myself. To say truth, I have lived so long in the sand plains as to have lost my mountain legs, and I hesitated to see if a hunter could mount thither for fear of fresh offence; but, if she bide there till Rogation-tide, it will be ill for the lambs."

"Is that all?" cried Maximilian. "Then will I, a neutral, kill your bear for you, gentlemen, so that neither need transgress this new crag of debate. I'll go down and look at your bear spears, friend Ebbo, and be ready so soon as Kasimir has done with his bridal."

"That crag!" cried Ebbo. "Little good will it do either of us. Sire, it is a mere wall of sloping rock, slippery as ice, and with only a stone or matting of ivy here and there to serve as foothold."

"Where bear can go, man can go," replied the Kaisar.

"Oh, yes! We have been there, craving your pardon, Herr Graf," said Ebbo, "after a dead chamois that rolled into a cleft, but it is the worst crag on all the hill, and the frost will make it slippery. Sire, if you do venture it, I conjure you to take Koppel, and climb by the rocks from the left, not the right, which looks easiest. The yellow rock, with a face like a man's, is the safer; but ach, it is fearful for one who knows not the rocks."

"If I know not the rocks, all true German rocks know me," smiled Maximilian, to whom the danger seemed to be such a stimulus that he began to propose the bear-hunt immediately, as an interlude while waiting for the bride.

However, at that moment, half-a-dozen horsemen were seen coming up from the ford, by the nearer path, and a forerunner arrived with the tidings that the Baron of Adlerstein Wildschloss was close behind with the little Baroness Thekla.

Half the moonlight night had Sir Kasimir and his escort ridden; and, after a brief sleep at the nearest inn outside Ulm, he had entered in early morning, demanded admittance at the convent, made short work with the Abbess Ludmilla's arguments, claimed his daughter, and placing her on a cushion before him on his saddle, had borne her away, telling her of freedom, of the kind lady, and the young knight who had dazzled her childish fancy.

Christina went down to receive her. There was no time to lose, for the huntsman Kaisar was bent on the slaughter of his bear before dark, and, if he were to be witness of the wedding, it must be immediate. He was in a state of much impatience, which he beguiled by teasing his friend Wildschloss by reminding him how often he himself had been betrothed, and had managed to slip his neck out of the noose. "And, if my Margot be not soon back on my hands, I shall give the French credit," he said, tossing his bear-spear in the air, and catching it again. "Why, this bride is as long of busking her as if she were a beauty of seventeen! I must be off to my Lady Bearess."

Thus nothing could be done to prepare the little maiden but to divest her of her mufflings, and comb out her flaxen hair, crowning it with a wreath which Christina had already woven from the myrtle of her own girlhood, scarcely waiting to answer the bewildered queries and entreaties save by caresses and admonitions to her to be very good.

Poor little thing! She was tired, frightened, and confused; and, when she had been brought upstairs, she answered the half smiling, half shy greeting of her bridegroom with a shudder of alarm, and the exclamation, "Where is the beautiful young knight? That's a lady going to take the veil lying under the pall."

"You look rather like a little nun yourself," said Ebbo, for she wore a little conventual dress, "but we must take each other for such as we are;" and, as she hid her face and clung to his mother, he added in a more cheerful, coaxing tone, "You once said you would be my wife."

"Ah, but then there were two of you, and you were all shining bright."

Before she could be answered, the impatient Emperor returned, and brought with him the abbot, who proceeded to find the place in his book, and to ask the bridegroom for the rings. Ebbo looked at Sir Kasimir, who owned that he should have brought them from Ulm, but that he had forgotten.

"Jewels are not plenty with us," said Ebbo, with a glow of amusement and confusion dawning on his cheek, such as reassured the little maid that she beheld one of the two beautiful young knights. "Must we borrow?"

Christina looked at the ring she had first seen lying on her own Eberhard's palm, and felt as if to let it be used would sever the renewed hope she scarcely yet durst entertain; and at the same moment Maximilian glanced at his own fingers, and muttered, "None but this! Unlucky!" For it was the very diamond which Mary of Burgundy had sent to assure him of her faith, and summon him to her aid after her father's death. Sir Kasimir had not retained the pledge of his own ill-omened wedlock; but, in the midst of the dilemma, the Emperor, producing his dagger, began to detach some of the massive gold links of the chain that supported his hunting-horn. "There," said he, "the little elf of a bride can get her finger into this lesser one and you--verily this largest will fit, and the goldsmith can beat it out when needed. So on with you in St. Hubert's name, Father Abbot!"

Slender-boned and thin as was Ebbo's hand, it was a very tight fit, but the purpose was served. The service commenced; and fortunately, thanks to Thekla's conventual education, she was awed into silence and decorum by the sound of Latin and the sight of an abbot. It was a strange marriage, if only in the contrast between the pale, expressive face and sad, dark eyes of the prostrate youth, and the frightened, bewildered little girl, standing upon a stool to reach up to him, with her blue eyes stretched with wonder, and her cheeks flushed and pouting with unshed tears, her rosy plump hand enclosed in the long white wasted one that was thus for ever united to it by the broken fragments of Kaisar Max's chain.

The rite over, two attestations of the marriage of Eberhard, Freiherr von Adlerstein, and Thekla, Freiherrinn von Adlerstein Wildschloss and Felsenbach, were drawn up and signed by the abbot, the Emperor, Count Dankwart, and the father and mother of the two contracting parties; one to be committed to the care of the abbot, the other to be preserved by the house of Adlerstein.

Then the Emperor, as the concluding grace of the ceremonial, bent to kiss the bride; but, tired, terrified, and cross, Thekla, as if quite relieved to have some object for her resentment, returned his attempt with a vehement buffet, struck with all the force of her small arm, crying out, "Go away with you! I know I've never married YOU!"

"The better for my eyes!" said the good-natured Emperor, laughing heartily. "My Lady Bearess is like to prove the more courteous bride! Fare thee well, Sir Bridegroom," he added, stooping over Ebbo, and kissing his brow; "Heaven give thee joy of this day's work, and of thy faithful little fury. I'll send her the bearskin as her meetest wedding-gift."

And the next that was heard from the Kaisar was the arrival of a parcel of Italian books for the Freiherr Eberhard, and for the little Freiherrinn a large bundle, which proved to contain a softly-dressed bearskin, with the head on, the eyes being made of rubies, a gold muzzle and chain on the nose, and the claws tipped with gold. The Emperor had made a point that it should be conveyed to the castle, snow or no snow, for a yule gift.